Sadder But Wiser
by Marianne Greenleaf
Summary: Harold Hill overhears Marian Paroo sing My White Knight. It unsettles and intrigues him.


_A/N – This vignette was inspired by a simple question: what if Harold had overheard Marian singing My White Knight? Also heavily inspired by owlinaminor's lovely and lyrical fic, sit with me (posted on Archive of Our Own)._

XXX

His first thought is: _What kind of sadder but wiser girl talks like_ that_?_

His second thought is: _Plop goes the fish!_

He flees in terror.

Harold finds himself at the freight depot, seriously contemplating the next train out of town. Not even paying for a ticket, just hopping on a passing boxcar like a hobo: dirty and feral and free.

Marcellus wanders by. "What's up, Greg?"

The conman flashes the dazzling grin he gives everyone when he's selling: all light, no heat. "Checking on a shipment," he says breezily. He can't even trust his shill with the crazy way his heart is beating both _fleefleeflee_ and _staystaystay_ in a disconcerting counterpoint. Stravinsky had nothing on true dissonance.

But Marcellus seems to know anyway, if the way he raises his eyebrow is any indication. "You had anything to eat yet today?"

"Nope," Harold says staunchly, and takes off before he can be ensnared into another invitation, a real kindness from someone who actually cares about him. It would only be another snare around his ankle, another fatal clip to his glorious wings.

But where can he go? He can't go barreling off into a cornfield. He isn't about to coop himself up inside the wretched little room he inhabits at the boarding house. The pool hall is absolutely out of the question. There's no saloon.

So Harold goes to the library. Doesn't enter it, though, just circles the building until he finds a large bush by an even larger window. The perfect spot to see without being seen.

Concealed from passerby, he watches her go about her business. _Why not?_ he tells himself. He's got nothing better to do in this dry little town.

He tries not to remember how warm and welcoming she was when they danced together, the way she folded into his arms like she belonged there, even as he watches her intently, trying to reconcile the prim librarian with the spirited woman who sings like a dewy young miss with the world before her, still daring to hope for a white knight to rescue her from the drudgery of her life. He thinks he sees glimmers of that woman in the sprightliness of her step, the graceful and dreamy way she weaves in and out of the stacks, the charming wistfulness that steals into her eyes when she thinks no one is watching.

_Marian._ Even her name is musical. Just like everything else about her. It's a damn good thing she loathes him. Otherwise, he might actually try to live up to this ridiculous white knight business. It's all too easy to imagine spending many pleasant days with her in a small cottage pondering the greatness of Shakespeare and Beethoven, and spending even pleasanter nights getting her to open beneath his seasoned touch, like a beautiful moonflower blossoming. He wants to see her kissable crimson lips part in panting ecstasy when he runs his hands and mouth everywhere over her curves, and what her lithe hourglass figure looks like under the exquisitely embroidered chemise he folded while helping her mother with the laundry.

All the experience he'd racked up in his travels, he would use solely to dazzle and delight _her_. His breath hitches in his throat at the thought of it, and his cock gets even harder. _No shame in being pecker-hard for a gal_, his father reassured him when he was a boy who'd just discovered the maddening allure of girls. One of the rare times the man actually lived up to the title before he croaked untimely, unceremoniously, unmourned.

Harold stands there for who knows how long, admiring the way her beautiful honey-blonde locks take on the most gorgeous red-gold hue in glow of the setting sun. The perfect corona for a fiery Irish rose. He is staring so keenly at this that he doesn't immediately realize she's now standing right by his window. She's staring, too. Not at him, but at something beyond the horizon. _Her imaginary white knight_, he supposes. He's suddenly annoyed, and not sure why.

Finally, she spots him in the bush, and their eyes meet. He doesn't grin. He doesn't even smile. He just looks at her with naked, almost pleading, wanting. He feels like a boy caught staring at his classroom crush. But he doesn't look away.

For a moment – it only takes a moment – she falters and bites her lip, that delicious and desperate wanting almost exactly mirrored in her mercurial eyes. They're hazel. He's never really noticed that before. Then again, she's never given him the chance to gaze so deeply into them. As he does, he sees the woman who sang _my white knight_ in full bloom before him, only this time she's looking as if she sees _him_ in that particular role. His heart pounds that disconcerting and dissonant counterpoint again.

_Who's selling, and who's buying?_ he wonders, the grounding question he always asks himself to dissipate the electrifying effect of an attractive woman's heated gaze. But suddenly, it seems unimportant what the answer is. _For no Diana do I play faun_, his mind prompts. But he doesn't listen to that, either. Somehow, such sentiments seem like the hollow and baseless crowing of a chicken being marched inexorably to the slaughter.

Recklessly, he chooses to stay and see what the silently appraising librarian will do next. It's the perfect coincidence that she's grasping, white-knuckled, a battered copy of _A Tale of Two Cities_ in her slender and elegant fingers. He doesn't quite believe in God, but he wholeheartedly embraces the concept of synchronicity. After all, he wouldn't be where he was today without it. And like Sydney Carton, he'll bravely accept whatever his fate is and lay his head down beneath Madame la Guillotine: _It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done…  
_  
But Marian jumps and drops her book, as if startled by something. Whether it is a patron coming up behind her, a door opening, a book being slammed shut, he doesn't know. It doesn't really matter, anyway. The result is the same: she scowls at him, bends over to retrieve the maltreated book, and then twitches the heavy drapes closed.

Harold bursts into laughter and trots down the street, whistling even past the graveyard. While the queer hold her Siren song has over him isn't entirely broken by that dismissive gesture, he is himself again. But more importantly, he is decided: he's going to stay in River City, and he's going to bed the lovely librarian as many times as he can possibly get her to agree to it. It's the only surefire way to work her completely out of his system before he finally has to move on to the next town.

But first, he's going to teach her a new tune. Something a little more seductive and lilting, made for his hips to beat in steady time against hers as they dance to their own private melody. He could already hear the music in his head: _the sadder but wiser white knight._

Granted, the lyrics need work. But he has the gift of gab and Marian is a librarian. Between the two of them, they could certainly come up with a compelling two-part harmony that leaves them gasping and boneless by the time their song ends. And as the sadder but wiser girl – she just _had_ to be, despite her uncommon longing for white knights – she'd surely surprise him with a few elegant refinements of her own.

XXX

_Fun fact: Meredith Willson originally wrote My White Knight and The Sadder But Wiser Girl as counterpoint songs, sung in tandem by Harold and Marian as they each make their way to the footbridge, knowing that this rendezvous will change their lives forever. The 1991 Cincinnati Pops version of the soundtrack demonstrates this beautifully._


End file.
